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Chess tactics explained

chesstactics.org

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Re: Chess tactics explained

#31

Post by mci »

jstanley wrote: post #27
mci wrote: post #16

> This site teaches chess in words. > It assumes you know only how the pieces move and builds step-by-step from there. Do not get me wrong: TFA is a fine and useful book for an intermediate player but the above claims are overselling it. They are equivalent to telling you that learning the x ^= y; y ^= x; x ^= y; trick will make you a better programmer while being silent on what copy-and-paste programming, magic cons…

It's all well and good controlling the centre, putting rooks on open files, co-ordinating your bishop pair, keeping a strong pawn structure, etc., but if you leave your pieces vulnerable to tactics that your opponent can find and you can't, then it's all for nought. That's why tactics can be considered more important than strategy. Strategy becomes more important only when neither player is making tactical blunders.

> if you leave your pieces vulnerable to tactics that your opponent can find and you can't, then it's all for nought.

In my book, {avoiding hanging pieces, placing your pieces so that the opponent cannot pin them} ⊂ strategy, being wary of forks ∈ tactics.

Re: Chess tactics explained

#32

Post by noir_lord »

Normille wrote: post #2

I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination. The fact I've seen about 3 chess related submissions on HN recently, where I don't recall ever seeing one before, suggests it does. I used to enjoy a game of chess back in the day, although I was never very good. And I always imagined myself playing chess with a remote opponent by post when I…

> as I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play.

100% sure, probably not however all the major online chess sites operate anti-cheat systems and heuristics plus dedicated teams.

I play a lot online and nearly always look at the game with a computer afterwards and you can see that it was a human game (or someone been very clever with how they used the engine).

I mean if you where a GM playing in a ranked tournament with a prize fund I could see the concern but at our level computer cheats are much easier to spot.

Re: Chess tactics explained

#33

Post by fabian2k »

jjeaff wrote: post #30
fabian2k wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the chance of cheating is a serious issue if you're playing at a low level online. You're generally matched against playes with a similar rating, and someone using a computer heavily would drastically inflate their rating. Which also increases the chance at detection significantly. Computers are scary good at chess, it's not exactly invisible if you use them to cheat. If you're a beginner it's also quit…

I suppose if you are really cheating, you wouldn't sprinkle in some computer moves. You would just move your pieces in the computer game exactly as your human opponent does. Then you move your own pieces in the human game exactly as the computer does in the computer game.

Then you're playing at something like 3000-3500 ELO. That's very, very far from subtle. And that is something you can detect by analyzing the games, a human won't pick the engine moves all the time.

Re: Chess tactics explained

#34

Post by bttrfl »

fabian2k wrote: post #28
Normille wrote: post #2

I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination. The fact I've seen about 3 chess related submissions on HN recently, where I don't recall ever seeing one before, suggests it does. I used to enjoy a game of chess back in the day, although I was never very good. And I always imagined myself playing chess with a remote opponent by post when I…

I don't think the chance of cheating is a serious issue if you're playing at a low level online. You're generally matched against playes with a similar rating, and someone using a computer heavily would drastically inflate their rating. Which also increases the chance at detection significantly. Computers are scary good at chess, it's not exactly invisible if you use them to cheat. If you're a beginner it's also quit…

I sometimes play online and for some reason I frequently stumble upon users who cheat in all kinds of ways. From using a computer (it's easy to tell when all moves regardless of difficulty take exactly the same time to make) to baiting me to play a 3-min game and then changing it to 30-min right before I accept the game. The only reasonable explanation is that they are trying to harvest ranking to "transfer" it to another account. Regardless of the motivation is does suck out the joy for me.

Re: Chess tactics explained

#35

Post by bttrfl »

Normille wrote: post #2

I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination. The fact I've seen about 3 chess related submissions on HN recently, where I don't recall ever seeing one before, suggests it does. I used to enjoy a game of chess back in the day, although I was never very good. And I always imagined myself playing chess with a remote opponent by post when I…

google trends can help answer your question: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=chess,fort...

Re: Chess tactics explained

#36

Post by Lio »

Normille wrote: post #2

I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination. The fact I've seen about 3 chess related submissions on HN recently, where I don't recall ever seeing one before, suggests it does. I used to enjoy a game of chess back in the day, although I was never very good. And I always imagined myself playing chess with a remote opponent by post when I…

> as I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play.

That's less of a problem than you might think. The reason being that most online chess systems will give you an Elo rating and use that to match you up to similarly rated potential opponents.

Anyone that was using a computer to play for them would quickly gain a high rating and so either be matched against really strong players who stand a chance of beating the computer or others doing the same thing.

Give online chess a go, it's great.

Re: Chess tactics explained

#38

Post by tgb »

> between good players, a one-piece advantage is enough to cause the disadvantaged party to resign.

Is this accurate? I would have assumed that, say, positioning is equally important and a naive "count the pieces" assessment wouldn't hold much value.

Re: Chess tactics explained

#39

Post by flr03 »

Normille wrote: post #2

I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination. The fact I've seen about 3 chess related submissions on HN recently, where I don't recall ever seeing one before, suggests it does. I used to enjoy a game of chess back in the day, although I was never very good. And I always imagined myself playing chess with a remote opponent by post when I…

Never been good either but I was occasionally playing when I was younger and The Queen's Gambit did get me back into Chess.

On Chess.com the post game report gives you the move accuracy which is, I guess, some kind of standard deviation compared to what a chess engine would play. Never seen someone having a very high suspicious score, at least at my level.

Re: Chess tactics explained

#40

Post by flr03 »

tgb wrote: post #38

> between good players, a one-piece advantage is enough to cause the disadvantaged party to resign. Is this accurate? I would have assumed that, say, positioning is equally important and a naive "count the pieces" assessment wouldn't hold much value.

The answer is both. Ie, pawns holding the centre of the board have a higher relative value than pawns on the sides. At a very high level, if a player end up resigning because of a one piece advantage it's because they have already processed the next few turns and know there is no way out.
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